


Refuse To Go Numb

by musicalkiddo



Series: Falling Through The Sky [1]
Category: Smash (TV)
Genre: M/M, as always: idk how to title things... so i stole a lyric lol, ghost!kyle, the style of this is a little different bc i wanted it to feel disconnected, there's obviously death mentions but just what happens in the show so read at your own discretion, this is sad but I'm probably gonna write additional stuff in this like universe that gets happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 05:37:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5035897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicalkiddo/pseuds/musicalkiddo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were big gaps in time.  Kyle could only remember a few things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Refuse To Go Numb

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kylebishop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylebishop/gifts).



There were big gaps in time.  Kyle could only remember a few things.

Being friends with Jimmy.  Sleeping with Jimmy.  Being friends with Jimmy.  Dating Blake to make Jimmy jealous.  Sleeping with Tom to feel better about dating Blake to make Jimmy jealous.  Making up with Jimmy.  Being friends with Jimmy.  Sleeping with Jimmy.  Fighting with Jimmy at the bar.  Jimmy saying he didn’t love him.

Dying.

Waking up in the loft with cold light streaming in through the window.  No sound, not even the coffee machine humming away.

Not feeling his feet on the cold wooden floor.

No reflection in the mirror.

Unread mail by the door.  A newspaper.  The obituaries.  His face, distorted by the plastic bag.  Kyle Bishop in ink, finally in ink.

He didn’t leave, and Jimmy didn’t come home.  He didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, didn’t breath.  Didn’t need to.

When Jimmy finally came home, lead in by a sorrowful Julia, Kyle leapt up.  _Surprise!_ He wanted to shout.   _There’s been a misunderstanding!_

Neither of his writing partners noticed him.  He focused on them talking.  They sounded like they were underwater, but they were working on the show!  His show.  He missed it, missed them, missed feeling things.

It took him another week to accept that he was a ghost.  He was dead, and he was a ghost.  He missed Jimmy.  He missed music.  He missed sweaters and blankets and notebooks.

His (ex?) best friend didn’t come home again for days.  When he did, he wandered aimlessly around the loft, picking things up and putting them back down.  He drank a lot.  He often looked at an old photostrip of the two of them.  Kyle remembered leaving that photostrip at Adam’s door.  He figured the universe had considered kicking Jimmy out a bad move and punished him accordingly.  He spent all his energy trying to scream at Jimmy.   _I’m here.  I love you._  But it didn’t work.  He was exhausted.  He couldn’t sleep.  At night he watched Jimmy’s restless rest, watched him toss and turn, watched him wake up sweating.

One night he placed a hand on Jimmy’s arm, unable to bare his suffering anymore without doing anything.  Jimmy glanced down at the place where their skin touched before brushing his other hand over it, shivering.  His fingers went right through Kyle’s.  Kyle wanted to cry.  He couldn’t.

He tried harder.

It took three days before Jimmy woke up, opened his eyes, and immediately punched the wall so hard his knuckles started to bleed.

“Oh my God!” Kyle gasped, even though Jimmy couldn’t hear him.  He wished he could kiss the hand that was bleeding all over Jimmy’s sheets.

Jimmy was muttering under his breath.  He seemed angry.  “I guess this is what I get, huh?” he shouted suddenly.  It would have given Kyle a heart attack if he wasn’t already dead.  “I’m an asshole to him and he comes back to fucking haunt me for it?”

Him?

“Jimmy?” it was quiet, but Jimmy had been waiting for a response.

“I’m sorry, okay?  I know it’s my fault.”

“Are you… seeing me right now?”

“I don’t know what I took last night, man, but this is too fucking much.”  His hand was still bleeding.  He wasn’t answering Kyle’s question.

“Do you see me?”

Jimmy scrubbed his clean hand over his eyes and shook his head.  Kyle approached him and tried to take his hand.  He couldn’t hold it.  Jimmy shuddered and tried to hit him, but that didn’t work either.

“I don’t blame you,” Kyle said.  He was used to lying to Jimmy, to moving past things any normal person would hold onto.

“Yeah, because you’re not real.”  He got up and left in the same clothes he’d slept in.

Jimmy didn’t come back for another week.  Kyle was worried.  He didn’t leave the loft.

He’d been looking out the window, and the only thing that alerted him to Jimmy’s arrival was the sudden soft crying he heard.  He turned around.

“Why are you still here?” Jimmy asked.  “I mean… how?”

“I don’t know.  I woke up here.”

“Are you… real?”

“I think so.” Kyle didn’t know how to tell him that he wasn’t even sure if Jimmy was real, much less himself.

“I missed you, Ky.”

“I missed you too.”  Kyle wanted to hug him.  He didn’t move.

It was Jimmy who walked over.  He stood close, forehead to forehead, but neither boy could feel the familiar breath on their cheeks.  Jimmy leaned his head forward and felt a chill as his forehead passed through Kyle’s, just barely, before he pulled back.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Tumblr user kylesbishop's ghost au and is for him.
> 
> I'm on Tumblr at musicalkiddo and would love to hear from you! Hmu with prompts or reviews or headcanons or anything you want.


End file.
